PhD position in the Laboratory for Astrophysics

Job description

Teaser Text Applications are invited for a four-year PhD position at the Laboratory for Astrophysics ( https://labastro.strw.leidenuniv.nl ) of Leiden Observatory, within the framework of the INTERCAT Phase 2 project “Radical-driven surface reactions on interstellar dust grains.” The PhD project will experimentally investigate how radicals adsorb, diffuse, and react on interstellar dust surfaces, leading to the extraterrestrial formation of precursors relevant to molecular building blocks of life (MBBLs). What you will do: The central aim of the project is to unravel surface radical–driven chemical processes that occur in the absence of external energetic inputs under conditions representative of interstellar molecular clouds. These surface reactions have been extensively explored in theoretical and laboratory studies for simple ice constituents and selected complex organic molecules detected in interstellar environments, including methanol, glyceraldehyde, and glycine. Building on this foundation, the proposed PhD research will employ custom-built, state-of-the-art laboratory setups to investigate interstellar formation pathways of MBBLs, such as amino acids, sugars, and nucleobas...